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13. It may be pointed out that brief statement of the deceased, pressed into service as dying declaration, was not accepted even by the trial Court as dying declaration, (para 53). It is also noteworthy that weapons seized from the appellants in pursuance of the information under Section 27 of the Evidence Act are not held to be connecting the appellants with the alleged crime (para 53).

14. The fate of the case thus, hinges on the credibility or otherwise of the ocular versions of P.W. 1 Balram, P.W. 2 Kamlabai, P.W. 3 Shyamubai, P.W. 5 Peera and P.W. 6 Rameshwar. The relevant portions of these witnesses were read out to us. We have also gone through the statements and find that the criticism levelled against them is not wholly unjustified. P.W. 6 Rameshwar who claims to be an injured person in the same incident begins his statement in the Court as "I do not know Umraosingh" (para 1). We may recall here that it is he who claims to be sleeping in the KHALA belonging to the deceased Umraosingh. He fails to identify at least three appellants (Prema, Bheru and Manka) even in the delayed identification parade (para 4) held by P.W. 12 Surajmal, Naib Tahsildar on 4-1-1984. He asserts in the Court that he was assaulted by Anand Singh with a Farsa (para 10). This was not said by him in his police statement marked Ex. D/5. P.W. 3 Shyamubai, however says that P.W. 6 was assaulted by Jatalsing. The medical report (Ex. P/32), however, does not confirm any injury by Farsa. Moreover, he did not state any marks of description on the basis of which, he may properly identify the assailants (para 21). There is no explanation either with regard to delay of 15 days caused in holding the test identification. In short, P.W. 6 does not inspire confidence.

15. P.W. 1 Balram and P.W. 5 Peera, both had an axe to grind and had positive animus to implicate falsely (para 11 of P.W. 5). On going through their statements, we find that they do not appear to be the witnesses of truth their versions, when subjected to close scrutiny, do not portray rustic simplicity, but have an indelible stamp of planned deceit and design. P.W. 2 Kalabai and P.W. 3 Shyamubai are also found to be equally unreliable. The First Information Report does not show particularisation of weapons. P.W. 2 attempts to do so (para 1) only to be contradicted by P.W. 1 as also by P.W. 3. If incident was witnessed, then where was the occasion to enquire from the deceased (para 2 of P.W. 1)? This means that the claim of being an eye-witness or a material witness for that matter is false. State v. Indoriva (1980) 2 Weekly Note 185. The deceased named only three. The witnesses foisted the case on twelve. We have carefully read the statements of all these witnesses ourselves. On this kind of evidence, we think, it is highly dangerous to sustain the conviction of as many as twelve persons when there are strong circumstances indicative of false implication. There is no way of separating the grain from the chaff inasmuch as even the overt act attributed to Anandsingh by P.W. 6 and Jatalsingh by P.W. 3 is falsified by the medical report (Ex. P/32). We do not find any serious effort on the part of the Court below to make even an attempt to shift the grain from the chaff and even if we were to assume that Court did make such an attempt then we can say that in so doing the Court has accepted the chaff and rejected the grain. We have, thus, no hesitation in rejecting the statements of these principal witnesses as thoroughly unreliable and untrustworthy.